Doc Rivers, coach of the Boston Celtics and friend of the coach of the New England Patriots, took in the Monday night game against the once-feared Houston Texans.

Rivers was given the keys to the Belichick special box and also had an inside view of the game preparation by his fellow champion. Rivers was duly impressed at the team execution of what the coach requested.

Rivers explained how much he learned from attending Patriot games. That may be why Belichick once asked Doc to lecture the football team on spirit and cohesion.

When asked, Rivers unabashedly said that Rajon Rondo was the Celtics version of Tom Brady, equating a quarterback with a point guard for long passes. Whether he meant any additional connections was best left unsaid.

No one asked if the comparison came about because the Celtics star, Rajon Rondo, had come to the game with Doc.

No one had to ask Rondo if he thought of himself as the equivalent of Brady. Rondo, circumspect as always, kept his opinions close to the vest. He wore a Wes Welker jersey. Enough said.

Rivers continued to point out how agog he was at the relationship between Brady and Belichick. Only one other coach/star constellation occurred to Doc, and—no, it was not Rondo and himself.

In fact, Rivers thought in terms of rapport he was more in tune with Kevin Garnett in personal terms.

Rivers was also a tad envious that Bill Belichick had only to prepare for one game per week, as opposed to the Celtics coach’s four or five games in a week. He must have also been impressed to see players that did exactly what the coach ordered.

New England coach Bill Belichick held a press conference and announced he had not heard anything about Rob Gronkowski (his star tight end having broken a forearm).

The Gronk, as he is affectionately known, had surgery at Mass. General Hospital early Monday morning, though Belichick seemed left outside the loop.

This news may have sent titters around the media members present at Gillette Stadium, but it reveals a far more interesting insight into the coaching staff and chain of command of the New England Patriots.

Now we can officially call them the “Know-Nothing” franchise.

We suspect that owner Bob Kraft has yet to inform Belichick he has been fined for “Spygate.”

Belichick’s professed ignorance is no excuse, according to many fans. If he pleads ignorance in a court of law, he might find himself convicted of perjury.

Yet, we have a sense that Belichick tells the truth. No one has informed him that Pluto is no longer a planet, and that the Earth goes around the Sun.

Without access to the Internet, the Patriots Head Coach likely has not heard that Twinkies are an endangered food source of fans and that Barack Obama won the Florida electoral votes.

Belichick has not yet heard that the NHL has locked out their players, and he probably has not heard that the Red Sox dumped Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett.

Rob Gronkowski allegedly had surgery on his broken arm several hours before Belichick’s news conference. We cannot expect news of this unimportance to have reached the coach who still uses snail mail to send memos to his players.

Belichick is expected to receive the news about Gronk by Pony Express later this week.

A top-secret poll by a well-known sports magazine asked over 100 NFL players to name (anonymously) the most overrated coach in football.

Hands down, Rex Ryan won the prize. Not since Norma Desmond came down those stairs for her closeup has there been such a surprise winner.

Ryan is, by far, the most blustery, man-eating coach in recent years. In a field where ego and appetite for self-importance are hors d’oeuvres for the big Super Bowl meal, Rex has rung the dinner bell more times than all the SB winners in the past ten years.

Part of the requirement to be considered overrated is to win nothing, but promise the world everything. In this category Rex Ryan is no best supporting actor. He has come in from the cold without a trophy more times than the actress who plays Erika Kane.

SI magazine did not reveal which New York Jets voted in the poll (presumably about three players from each of the 32 teams must have been called). Are there three Jets who’d turn on Tyrannosaurus Rex? Off-hand we can only think of two: Tim Tebow and Mark Sanchez.

With the aplomb of Mack the Knife in the dark, voters told SI that Rex is a notorious showboater who puts his bombast above the losses. We used to think this was good, taking the heat off inept and underwhelming players.

We are still puzzled how a man who seldom wins regular games, let alone playoff games, can be overrated. NFL players must think Rex is incapable of coaching a team to any victories.

If the smug fans up in New England are chuckling, they likely didn’t see who came in second in the contest: yes, the first runner-up is also the first to lose. Bill Belichick who has gone to the Super Bowl five times in a decade was dismissed as second-most overrated. Belichick likely would respond like Mark Twain: rumors of his demise are greatly exaggerated.

Under the circumstances, we conclude that the poll actually reveals who the most well-known celebrities are in coaching ranks. As our old journalism teacher used to say, as long as they spell the name correctly, you shouldn’t mind being in the headlines.

The New England Patriot playbook has been dumbed down enough for Ochocinco to be able to read, to memorize, and to understand it. It falls into the category of too little too late for the former Patriot, former married man, and former NFL player.

Though Dick and Jane have been out of the reading business for a few generations now, it may be key literature in the Belichick learning canon.

Run, Woody, run. See Ridley run. Run, run, run, Bolden.

Without Tom Brady throwing on every play, or even every other play, the Patriots did some fancy footwork in their winning efforts. Tom can’t be expected to read and to run every play in the book. Last week he read that wristband like it held instructions for the Heimlich Maneuveur. He kept looking for the play page for CPR.

In Seattle, they Patriots looked like they were too illiterate to understand Josh McDaniels and his form of literacy. As a result, Russell Whatchamacallit started to look like Bart Starr. We fear the speed-reading rate for Tim Tebow (or even his fellow bellhop Mark Sanchez in the NFL hostel to the stars) may be when the Jets show up Sunday.

Tebow is a notorious disabled learner with dyslexia. For him the Belichick playbook may look like the libretto for Turandot.

Moving the ball without a huddle, however it occurs, makes the fans giddy, especially when it happens in non-stop attacks for five first downs across the field. It makes Brady an observer who will live to play another day.

With precision that is often required of brain surgeons, Brady fascinated the faithful with his performance against Denver, reading like I.A. Richards, not Y.A. Tittle. He called plays so interestingly that his mike was turned up on the televised game. We could hear him calling for whiskey and rice pudding.

If the whiskey pudding plays don’t make this week’s playbook, we may be playing for time. If the Jets win, the Patriots may have a hard time proving their literate aptitude to football fans everywhere.

If another loss bites Spot in the wrong spot, we shall say loudly, “Run, Tom, run.” There is a lynch mob right behind you.

If you thought Rex Ryan was losing weight, here is the real skinny on the Jets coach. He has fallen off the wagon. Tim Tebow and Mark Sanchez have pushed the dessert cart right up to Rex’s office door.

It’s chow down time with another patented Patriot-Jets game coming up on the menu. It’s a recipe for disaster for the loser.

The tall thin man in Jets green has been talking up the dinner menu for Sunday’s game at Gillette Stadium, and he has cooked up a five-course meal to serve to the Patriots.

Ryan has ordered that Mark Sanchez throw up all those cream puffs against the New England team. If Russell Wilson can play busboy against a Bill Belichick team, then the Jets can serve up rubber chickens to the Pats.

If Rex looks emaciated, it could be that he has not been feasting on two chickens in a pot every Sunday.

A strict diet of eating crow can do that to an NFL coach.

We have noticed that Bill Belichick has dropped a few pounds in recent weeks. The notorious gray hoodie looks like it is hanging on the head of the Grim Reaper.

Rex has ordered that his quarterbacks turn on the microwave and serve up some vichyssoise to the burnt Patriot secondary. On Sunday the team ought to put a bib on Devin McCourty. There’s no crying over spilt milk, but there is no meat in this soupcon.

If you like your fast food served up by Tom Brady, then the Sunday dinner bell is already ringing. Look for no huddle offense to deliver those extra-large fries. It will be enough to curb Rex Ryan’s appetite for bluster.

If you have been puzzled by the weekly injury reports coming out of the New England Patriots, you are not alone.

Every week, as required by NFL rules, the Patriots under coach Bill Belichick list their probable and questionable players for the upcoming game. IN some weeks, it seems every major player on the team has come down with something or other.

The nagging injuries range from leg to neck to and every body part in between.

What determines then whether a player is questionable for game time or not?

We have done our research and found the answer: it is up to Bill Belichick and his magical approach to good health.

Hidden spy cameras took photos of Belichick during training camp when Aaron Hernandez cracked his funny bone and rushed to the sidelines. Some may recall that Belichick ran over to his highly prized tight end and planted a wet smackeroo on the boo-boo, thus rendering Hernandez able to return to practice.

This remarkable voodoo style treatment of injury sets Belichick apart from all other NFL coaches who do not have the chutzpah or medical chops to take such drastic action.

Showing intense love for his players, Belichick will do the unimaginable. He will kiss the pain to make it better. This treatment has been used for millennia by mothers who know something about good parenting.

How effective is Belichick’s cure-all? With dozens of players seeking medical treatment on the injury list every week, this likely means a large supply of lip balm for the coach. We have noted that dozens of names on the weekly report suddenly and miraculously return to play the next game.

Even more amazing, these players have extraordinary success after one treatment from the loveable Belichick method of boo-boo repair and automatic healing.

Unnamed team sources say there are limits to Belichick’s panacea. He draws the line at what he will kiss. They say the only person that the coach will make an exception for is Tom Brady, making Belichick a bona fide butt-kisser in only Tom’s case.

The worst play of the Sunday victory against the New York Jets caused Bill Belichick to examine one player in particular.

Though nearly every “insider” expert has been complaining about the defense, it was the offensive line that offended Bill Belichick.

In one minor play, Tom Brady found himself hit by a Jet player going at close to the speed of sound as the Jet blew past one of the failed defenders of the Franchise.

When Franchise Tom Brady is knocked down, the player who failed to protect him goes down for the count

Brady went down with a thud, and meekly following came his missed blocker, Patriot Thomas Welch, who trotted up to look at the damage. Brady likely said encouraging words to his lineman as he fell on his grass.

Unfortunately for Thomas Welch, who had been on Minnesota’s taxi squad last year and was signed by the Patriots on September 3rd, he was the major collateral damage from his one big play in a Patriots uniform.

Belichick can say, “Next!” faster than a Starbucks server on Monday morning.

The Patriots released Thomas Welch on Monday. We can only speculate at what Coach Belichick’s parting words to the player may have been. They likely were as humorless as Tom Brady’s words were facetious.

On the other hand, Bill Belichick is the first to admit he has made a mistake, or at least removed a player for reasons other than the obvious.

Around the same time that Welch took the juice-laced Kool Aid, Bill re-signed Dan Gronkowski, tight end blocking specialist.

Some astute football observers may draw a connection between releasing someone who let Brady get sacked and re-signing someone who is a blocker

More astute fans know that Rob Gronkowski has been lost since his brother Dan left the team two weeks ago. Forlorn and with an apartment growing messier by the day, Belichick had to step in and bring back the elder Gronkowski back to the team to keep his little sibling in check.

Since Wes Welker liked to have stereophonic Gronkowskis on either side of his locker, he too may be celebrating the return of the smarter brother (according to Welker’s own Wonderlic testing).

In any respect we expect practice this week to improve greatly as the Patriots contemplate the navel of Tony Romo.

William Russo's newest book is now out, ready for your tablet, your smartphone, your Kindle or Nook. Read RED SOX 2011: A WHIMSICAL AUTOPSY to find a month-by-month examination of the team, showing all the signs of trouble that most sports media missed. His other sports books are SEX, DRUGS, SPORTS & WHIMSY and RAJON RONDO: SUPERSTAR!